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air compressor to steam engine

Anonymous Fri 16 Apr 12:25:13 2021 No.12983220 View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>12983557 >>12983655 >>12983670 >>12983710 >>12985141 >>12986712 >>12986831 >>12987750

so as you probably know, piston type air compressors can be converted to run on steam or compressed air with hardly any mods.

what i want to know is, can a screw type air compressor work on steam? or is it piston type only?
thanks

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 16 Apr 2021 13:57:33 No.12983557 Report

Quoted By:

>>12983220
/ Sci / users are not Tommy fans, so I doubt there will be an answer. If I can guess, I think the answer to your question is: no.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 16 Apr 2021 14:21:29 No.12983655 Report

Quoted By: >>12983670

>>12983220

Are you proposing running it in reverse, providing steam rather than air to drive the pistons and output mechanical energy rather than the opposite? I think it would work in theory, but the advantage of the screw type is that it doesn't really experience super high temps... in this case I'd expect your run into significant issues with the extreme temperatures and a break down of any seals as a result. You'd likely need to figure out some way to sufficiently cool the oil. May also want to check if the gears even can rotate in the opposite direction

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 16 Apr 2021 14:25:35 No.12983670 Report

Quoted By:

>>12983220
>>12983655

Beyond the cooling issue and the types of seals required, I'd expect you could also have some issues with, because of the thermal expansion of the metals as they heat up beyond expected temperature range, the screws binding up. That's a problem that would be really difficult to guarantee without running tests, and even then prolonged usage isn't guaranteed... this is sort of like how a steam turbine works (high pressure steam blasts in in angled jets to drive a turbine) so I feel it's feasible, but it's efficiency would naturally be much lower than a proper turbine.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 16 Apr 2021 14:36:45 No.12983710 Report

Quoted By:

>>12983220

One last thing,

You'd need to make damned sure that water doesn't condense in there or you'll be in for a real bad time (water being incompressible and all), the difficulty of ensuring this would likely be extra complicated by any cooling systems you'd implement.

I'd recommend a steam trap to resolve that issue
https://www.spiraxsarco.com/learn-about-steam/steam-traps-and-steam-trapping/introduction---why-steam-traps

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 16 Apr 2021 18:54:39 No.12985024 Report

Quoted By:

BUMP

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 16 Apr 2021 19:13:02 No.12985141 Report

Quoted By:

>>12983220
it looks like it would be very inefficient, there is so much mass the steam has to move with so little area to hit.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 16 Apr 2021 22:56:07 No.12986712 Report

Quoted By:

>>12983220
steam is better at expanding in a cylinder. you could get that screw type compressor to run but it wouldn't be very efficient. these things are better at blowing

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 16 Apr 2021 23:22:45 No.12986831 Report

Quoted By:

>>12983220
Steam engines have valves activated by a camshaft or some equivalent device. Compressors dont.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sat 17 Apr 2021 02:34:53 No.12987750 Report

Quoted By:

>>12983220
I'm no engineer but screw type looks way too much like a worm gear to me, I expect they are also basically a one-way valve for mechanical force.

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